


...Or Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become A Hero

by orphan_account



Series: You Either Die a Hero... [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Chutes and Ladders, Fluff, Gen, Healing, Its okay to be not okay, M/M, Post-War, Recovery, Shiro and Curtis have two children, Story-teller Shiro, There was an attempt at some degree of humor, broganes, idk how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 00:36:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17273792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Final piece in my 'You Either Die a Hero...' seriesMira just rolled her eyes as Shiro felt Curtis sit back up with an affronted, “Hey!”“Whatever,” was all Mira said before getting to her point. “Anyways, Anton keeps on kicking the wall and he refuses to stop unless you tell him a story of your time in space,” she looked at Shiro as she spoke.“Alright,” Shiro said, pushing back his seat and stretching once his feet touched the ground. “I was getting tired of playing this game anyways.”“He keeps on losing,” Curtis felt the need to inform Mira, causing Shiro to roll his eyes and he started for the door.“It’s because I have terrible luck,” Shiro told Mira, “But I already knew that, after all, I ended marrying that doofus,” he said with jerk of his thumb over his shoulder to point to Curtis, a teasing smile on his face.Mira just rolled her eyes again and headed for Anton’s room, while Shiro sent a spluttering Curtis a grin over his shoulder as he followed their thirteen year old daughter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a bit different than all the others in this series for a couple of reasons, but I actually really like it. Hope you all enjoy too!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't proofread this, so all mistakes are on me, and don't hesitate to point them out, I assure that I won't be offended.

“Aha! I win again! Take that oh high and mighty Captain of the Atlas! You have lost now for the fifth time in a row!” Shiro had to roll his eyes as Curtis slide his pawn onto the winning square of the board.

“Oh no, how will I ever cope, knowing that I have yet to win a game of Chutes and Ladders, a game of luck, against you tonight,” Shiro said dryly.

Curtis just grinned at Shiro, white teeth seemingly to shine next to his dark skin. Shiro just rolled his eyes again, though an amused smile was tugging at his lips.

“Want to play another round?” Curtis asked, his tone teasing as he continued, “Who knows, I might even let you win this one.”

“For the last time, it’s just a game of luck, you can’t ‘let me win,’ it’s all just chance. There is absolutely no skill required.”

“So are you saying that my many many victories in my very long and experienced career in have nothing to do with my impressive Chutes and Ladders skills?” Curtis asked indignantly.

“You’re words, not mine, but yes,” at this Curtis made an offended sound, but Shiro continued, “All your victories mean that you have good luck. I, on the other hand, have terrible luck.”

Curtis nodded his head as if in deep thought as his hand rose to rub his chin. “Hmmm, I suppose when you put it that way… I’ve decided that I will let your little remark about how I don’t have any Chutes and Ladders skills slide,” Curtis then snorted. “Get it?  _ Slide _ ? In a game where you--”

Shiro cut Curtis off with a groan and buried his face in his hands. “Oh my quiznak, that was terrible.”

“Thank you, I do try,” Curtis’s eyes lit up and Shiro braced himself. “I guess you can just call me, Cur _ try _ .”

“That didn’t make any sense.”

“Trytis? Cutries?”

Shiro shook his head at the suggestions. “I mean, Cutries was the best one, but it still was terrible.”

Cutis let out a deep sigh. “That’s a shame. They all sounded good in my head though, trust me.”

“Suuuure they did,” Shiro dragged out sarcastically, making Curtis gently punch him in the shoulder. “Ouch. Fine, I’ll believe you.”

“You better.”

There was a moment of comfortable silence and Curtis scooched his stool over closer to Shiro so that he could rest his head on Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro tilted his head slightly so that his check was pressed against the top of Curtis’s head.

“About the whole lucky thing,” Curtis said softly, “I already knew I was a very lucky man. After all, I got to marry you.”

Shiro felt himself smile and was about to respond when a noise of disgust cut him off.

“You two are gross,” Shiro turned his head to see Mira standing in the doorway, arms crossed over her ratty T-shirt that she liked to match with sweats and call them pajamas. 

“Hey, don’t blame me, it was your father who was being the mushy one,” Shiro defended, raising his hands in a defensive position.

Mira just rolled her eyes as Shiro felt Curtis sit back up with an affronted, “Hey!”

“Whatever,” was all Mira said before getting to her point. “Anyways, Anton keeps on kicking the wall and he refuses to stop unless you tell him a story of your time in space,” she looked at Shiro as she spoke.

“Alright,” Shiro said, pushing back his seat and stretching once his feet touched the ground. “I was getting tired of playing this game anyways.”

“He keeps on losing,” Curtis felt the need to inform Mira, causing Shiro to roll his eyes and he started for the door.

“It’s because I have terrible luck,” Shiro told Mira, “But I already knew that, after all, I ended marrying that doofus,” he said with jerk of his thumb over his shoulder to point to Curtis, a teasing smile on his face.

Mira just rolled her eyes again and headed for Anton’s room, while Shiro sent a spluttering Curtis a grin over his shoulder as he followed their thirteen year old daughter.

“I got him, you nitwit, now can you stop kicking the wall to my room?” Mira announced to her younger brother as she entered his room.

“Mira,” Shiro scolded gently, “Be nice to your brother.”

Mira let out an annoyed huff. “Fine.” Then she turned to her brother, who was turned the wrong way round in his bed with his feet on the pillow and head of dark shaggy hair where his feet should be. “Move your feet and sit up, you-- Anton,” she caught herself, “Move your feet and sit up, Anton.” She repeated.

“Why should I?” the eight year old challenged.

“Because I said so, and if you don’t I’m going to sit on you.”

“Fine,” Anton said, and a moment later he was perched at the head of his bed, looking down towards the foot. Mira climbed up to sit by him, glaring all the while as if she wasn’t happy to be there, though Shiro knew that she loved the stories just as much as Anton did. 

He also knew that if she didn’t want to be there, she wouldn’t be, he had learned that the hard way, through constantly losing track of her at formal events, freaking out, and then finding her home eating ice cream (He wasn’t even sure where she would get the ice cream, if they ever had any it was all dairy-free due to Mira’s mild lactose intolerance, but for some reason she always found dairy ice cream and ate that instead. She told him once that it tasted better, and that if it were to kill her, then so be it. She would die with no regrets. Sometimes she reminded Shiro far to much of Keith). 

He suspected that her honorary aunt and uncles were helping her out, but he never got any of them to admit it. He suspected one uncle in particular, the one who was an expert in sneaking out of public events himself, but whenever Shiro accused him, all he ever got was a blank look and a shrug.

“What story do you want to hear?” Shiro asked, sitting himself down towards the other end of the bed, the bed creaking slightly as he adjusted himself to sit with his legs folded.

“I wanna to hear about Uncle Keith!” Anton said enthusiastically, clapping his hands for emphasis.

Shiro let out a small chuckle at the kid’s enthusiasm, sparing only a quick glance at Mira who was nodding her head  in agreement before Shiro started.

“Well, the first thing that I want to say about Keith is that he was a hero…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a second part, coming soon hopefully.  
> Also, this is my first time writing any sort of ship besides friendship, so I hope I did okay. I kind of just made up Curtis's personality, I just wanted it to be someone who could make Shiro smile so I hope that it was okay.  
> Anyways, that's it, I hopefully will have the next chapter out very soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last part of this series! It's been a roller coaster to write these, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I ever thought I would. I hope you enjoy this last chapter!

“Uncle Keith!” Anton yelled as he ran to the doorway where Keith was standing before launching himself at Keith.

“Whoa, hey there, buddy,” Keith said after he regained his balance, awkwardly patting Anton’s messy hair.

“Hey Uncle Keith,” Mira said, popping her head up just enough to see over the couch before going back to typing away on her laptop.

“Hey Mira,” Keith returned, raising one hand in a wave before refocusing on young boy with a vice-like grip around his waist, unsure of what to do. “Umm…”

Shiro laughed at his predicament, causing Keith to glare at him. Luckily for Keith though, Curtis came to Keith’s rescue.

“Anton, why don’t you let Keith inside,” Curtis suggested, poking his head out from the kitchen. “I’m sure that he would love to see your drawings.”

Anton visibly brightened at the prospect, and relinquished his hug from Keith’s waist in favor of grabbing onto his hand, dragging him into the living room.

“Stay here,” Anton ordered, before taking off to his room.

“Does Curtis want any help in the kitchen? I can--” Keith was interrupted by Curtis from the other room.

“Absolutely not. I have witnessed Shiro’s abominations already, and I don’t feel the need to test the myths of the broganes terrible cooking skills. Not today, not in my house.”

“He literally has a password on the stove and oven to operate it and only he and Mira know the code. That’s how much he doesn’t trust me in the kitchen,” Shiro explained, moving Mira’s feet to the side so that he could sit on the couch next to her, causing her to grumble but still reluctantly shift. “You can sit down,” Shiro said, gesturing to the mismatched furniture of the living room. Keith took a seat in a rocking chair.

“He has a good reason to though. I mean, I by no means am a good cook, but I’ve had your cooking before and it is even worse than mine. I swear that that fish was still alive,” Keith shudders at the memory, while Shiro just looked confused.

“I was making brownies…”

Multiple emotions came to Keith, and he opened and closed his mouth as he debated on how to respond to that, only for the arrival of Anton to cut him off.

The kid was grinning and bouncing on his feet, though his movements turned more shy for a moment when he was right in front of Keith.

“Do you wanna see my drawings?” Anton asked as he carefully held out his sketchbook.

Keith gave him a warm smile. “I would love to see your drawings.”

Anton perked right up again at the words, and quickly dragged a chair over so that he could sit right by Keith and explain the drawings to him.

The drawings weren’t terrible, especially given that they were done by an eight year old, and while they weren’t exactly the Mona Lisa, but the sheer enthusiasm that Anton had for each picture made them the best pieces of art in the world to Keith.

“... And this one is Voltron destroying the evil galra ships like, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh with Voltron’s fire sword,” Anton rambled on standing on his chair to better demonstrate what he was envisioning as he drew the picture as he pretended to hold a sword and swing it around, making the whooshing noises as he did so.

“Anton, please don’t stand on the chairs.”

“Sorry dad,” Anton said quickly, dropping back down to a sitting position before he turned the page in the sketchbook without missing a beat. “And this one is the At-atlast- the- the it’s dad’s ship petting the Black Lion.”

“That’s so silly,” Keith said, hoping it was the correct response. It seemed right when Anton dissolved into the most adorable giggles that Keith had ever heard.

“Speaking of silly things,” Curtis said as he entered the room, “You all should get your silly selves to the dining room and help me set up for dinner, which is just about ready.”

“But I didn’t get to show Uncle Keith all my drawings,” Anton complained, causing Keith to smile and ruffle is hair.

“You can show me them after diner, bud,” Keith reassured, causing Anton to visibly brighten as he carefully moved his open sketchbook from Keith’s lap to his own chair. And then he was suddenly hoping to his feet and dragging Keith to the dining room, talking all the while about everything and anything, from his friends to a really cute dog he saw the other day to a story that Mira was apparently writing.

“I get to be an artist in it!” Anton exclaimed happily, almost knocking over a water pitcher as he laid out forks.

“He insisted on it,” Mira muttered, her checks flushing slightly pink as Anton fawned over her story to Keith, but she made no move to stop him.

“That is very nice of you,” Keith told, causing her to duck further down and let her pink-streaked dark pixie cut fall over her eyes as she set down another pitcher of water before leaving to bring in more things from the kitchen.

“She’s the best big sister,” Anton said dreamly. Then his voice dropped to a stage whisper as if he were telling a secret, “But sometimes she’s a big meanie pants.”

“I heard that, you cretin,” Mira called from the other room.

“See?” Anton moaned. “A big meanie pants.”

“Hey, hey, hey, both of you, be nice,” Shiro gently scolded, though Keith saw that he was fighting back a fond smile.

Anton pouted, muttering loud enough that everyone could hear. “She started it.”

Mira, who came into the room at that very moment, looked indignant. “I did not,” she defended.

“Did too,” Anton argued.

“Shirooo, Anton is--” whatever Mira was going to say was cut off by Curtis entering the room with a dish that filled the air with a mouth-watering scent.

Of course, almost any Earth food would smell mouth-watering to Keith. Since the end of the war he had been mostly living off of only the galra’s version of Coran’s food goo. It had the same basic make-up, with a few changes here and there to ensure that it had all the nutrients a galran needed to survive, but also somehow made it taste even worse than the green goo.

“Please, no fighting at the dinner table, if you two go at it again you’ll both have to eat in your rooms, have I made myself clear,” Keith could suddenly hear the Commanding Officer that Curtis really was in his tone, and had the bizarre urge to stand at attention and shout, ‘sir, yes, sir.’

“I will if she will,” Anton said, pointing a finger at Mira who just rolled her eyes.

“Whatever,” she muttered, plopping down into a seat.

“Good. Now that we have that settled,” Curtis set down his dish before clapping his hands together, “Take a seat and let’s eat. Hey, that rhymed! I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it.”

“That’s lovely dear,” Shiro said distractedly, and when Keith looked over, he seemed to be in some sort of weird staring contest with Mira. But before he could even question it, Anton was grabbing him by his wrist again and babbling.

“You can sit by me, Uncle Keith, sit right here,” Anton guided him to a chair before scrambling up onto one of his own. Shiro sat down at one of the head’s of the table while Curtis sat down next to Mira, across from Anton.

“So, Keith, how are things going with the galra?” Shiro asked conversationally after everyone had dished up and Anton had taken a big bite, offering a small window for someone else to speak up.

“Ugh,” Keith stabbed at his food with a bit more force than necessary. “You know, for a race of beings that not all that long ago were taking over the universe wouldn’t get into wars with one another or such petty things. ‘She stole my ship!’ ‘Yeah, well you stole it from my dad!’ ‘He was _dead_!’ ‘Yeah, because you killed him!’” he mocked in alternating high and low voices before groaning. “It’s a nightmare.”

Shiro snorted. “Sounds like it. I hope that all my wisdom and teachings that I have passed on to you have been able to help you out.”

This time Keith snorted. “Yeah, I tried the whole, ‘patience yields focus’ with one of the galras and she almost ripped my face off for telling her how to do things.”

“Sounds like a tough crowd.”

“It was my mom. She was in a really bad mood that day.”

Several emotions flashed over Shiro’s face as he was obviously taken back by what Keith said. He looked like he was just about to speak up when it seemed that Anton had finished letting other people talk.

“Uncle Keith, can you tell a story about being in space? An exciting one? Dad always tells stories, but I think I’ve hear all of his. Last night he told us the story of how you died! With all the explosions,” to demonstrate, Anton made various exploding noises with his mouth. “But then, you weren’t really dead, and they found you, and you were all okay, and it was super exciting. I like exciting stories.”

Keith felt his breath catch at the mention of his, ‘death’ and had to take a moment to center himself in the present before he was sent back _there_.

Shiro seemed to notice Keith’s reaction based on the concerned look that Shiro lowered his way and the way he spoke up.

“Hey, Anton, we don’t really need Uncle Keith to tell us a story right now, maybe he’ll be up for it later though,” Shiro said, eyes scanning Keith’s face as if he was trying to make sure Keith was okay, which was probably exactly what he was doing.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Keith distractedly said, locking eyes with Shiro as he asked, “it’s just, did you tell him about…” ‘ _...what happened after you ‘rescued’ me? After I stabbed Pidge, and almost killed you, and almost died?’_ was silent, but the meaning seemed to get through to Shiro, who shook his head, much to Keith’s relief.

“Tell me about what?” Anton asked eagerly, wanting a story. Keith allowed himself to let out a shaky breath before turning back around to look at Anton, unaware of the dark eyes staring at him from across the table that seemed to be plotting something.

“Tell you about the time on one of my missions with the Blade that involved a stolen rabbit, three fake mustaches, and the galran form of duct-tape?”

With that, the mood was back to normal, and soon enough everyone was laughing at Keith’s unfortunate tale. Keith was soon able to tuck whatever thoughts he had thought after Anton mentioned his death away.

 

***

 

“He still isn’t over it,” Mira said, leaning against the closed door behind her, arms crossed over her chest.

“Who isn’t over what?” Keith asked.

“Shiro. He isn’t over your death.”

“Oh,” was all Keith had time to say before Mira was continuing.

“He seems to think that he should be, so he pretends that he is, but that isn’t a good way to cope. All of it is ridiculous. He’s being ridiculous,” Mira huffed in annoyance.

“Well, um--” Keith tried to speak, by Mira quickly cut him off.

“No. Don’t talk yet. Let me do the talking for now,” Mira eyed him until he gave a nod before she dropped her gaze.

“He’s the one who is always concerned and telling me to make sure that nothing is bothering me, always reassuring me that I can talk to him on the nights where it gets bad, that if I need anything from a hug to a therapist I know that I could just ask him and he’ll get it in a heartbeat, but…” Mira’s arms fell to her sides as her shoulders dropped and she let out a sigh. “He seems to think that while it’s perfectly fine for me to have issues because of the war, it isn’t for him.”

Suddenly she bit her lip and clenched her fists. “It’s stupid!” she exclaimed suddenly. “ _He’s_ stupid! I just don’t understand how someone who is so smart can be so dumb. How he doesn’t seem to realize that yes, I was a kid who lost her parents to a war, yes I had to see their bodies after they had been burned in the explosion, yes I was and still am traumatized, and yes he is an adult while I am a kid, but he fought in the war himself! He saw far too many people, both innocent and not die, some by his own hand, even though I know that he never wanted to kill anyone. I still hear him crying about it some nights through the walls, but then the next day he pretends like nothing happened.

“But no matter how many people he had to see die, I know that seeing your’s was the one that haunts him the most,” Keith looked up from staring at his shoes, focusing on not being dragged into a flashback because all of what Mira was saying was far far to real, and he met dark eyes that seemed to stare into his soul.

“Nearly losing you so soon after just barely getting back nearly destroyed him. Uncle Hunk told me how shaken up he was when they got there, and how Shiro refused to be treated for his broken leg until he knew that you were going to be okay. Hunk told me that it was the most shaken up he has ever seen Shiro.”

Keith tried to swallow the lump that was forming in his throat. “I--”

“No, I’m still not done yet,” Mira cut him off again, and he obediently fell silent. “One of the worst parts is that he blames himself.”

“But, that’s unfair, it was out of his control!” Keith couldn’t help but blurting out.

“Exactly. But it doesn’t change the fact that he still blames himself, even if he doesn’t admit it.” Mira looked down and said softly, “Of course, I think that I understand. If Anton ever--” she cut herself off with a sharp intake of breath and then she was directing her firm gaze towards Keith again. “I’m not even going to say it. But I do understand, even if I think that it is still stupid, I do understand where he is coming from.”

Keith could sense that her ramble was mostly over and felt it time to speak up. “Why are you telling me all this? I mean-- I’m glad that you are, but--”

“I’m telling you all this so that you can fix it,” Mira hesitated before rephrasing her sentence, “Well, not fix it, _per se_ , but talk to him, tell him that it isn’t his fault, put a bandaid on it so it can stop getting infected and heal on its own.”

“Put a bandaid on it,” Keith repeated with a half smile, “I think that I can try and do that.”

Mira returned the half smile before pushing off the door and turning as if she were about to go, only for her hand to hesitate above the doorknob. “And Keith,” she started.

“Yeah?”

She turned her head to face him once more. “Thanks for being willing to help my dad. I feel like I just got him, but he’s a really good dad and I hate seeing him suffer.” And then she narrowed her eyes at Keith, “But if you hurt him in any way shape or form, you will suffer.”

Keith snorted, and walked over to place his hand on her shoulder, the same thing that Shiro used to do all the time for him. “He’s my brother, of course I’m going to want to help him. And if I do end up hurting him for whatever reason, please feel free to hunt me down for it.”

She nodded, and Keith let go of her shoulder.

“I knew there was a reason you were my favorite uncle.”

Keith shot her a grin. “Do you want me to sneak you out tomorrow and go to that new ice cream place? I’ve heard it makes great milkshakes.” Keith could just image in the look on Shiro’s face if he heard what they were doing, both of them were lactose intolerant but ice cream just tasted _so good_. And Keith was only ever on Earth a few times a year, he had to make the most of it.

“Definitely,” She said firmly, though she hesitated a moment before continuing. “Can Anton come too? I can make sure he won’t tell Shiro.”

“Of course he can come.”

There was a moment of silence that was quickly interrupted by a knocking on the door followed quickly by Anton’s voice.

“Can you let me in? I finished picking up all my toys, I want to finish showing Uncle Keith all my pictures!”

Mira seemed to take that as her que to go, opening the door and scooting past Anton who rushed in almost immediately, sketchbook under one arm.

Picking up right where he left off, Anton plunked the sketchbook down on the desk and began explaining his next drawing. “The one is my favorite one, it is…”

Keith commented appropriately for all of Anton’s drawings though his mind was elsewhere, thinking about the best way to approach Shiro later that night.

 

***

 

Shiro frowned as he tried to make sense of the report of a meeting he had missed last week when Anton had gotten sick. It seemed to be saying something about if it should be legal or not to keep space pets on Earth, but Shiro was pretty sure that that wasn’t something his department should be concerned with. He was just about ready to give up and call it a night when he heard familiar footsteps making their way towards him.

“Hey Keith,” Shiro said, grateful to have a reason to set down the report.

“Hey,” Keith said distractedly, eyes darting around and chewing on his lip in a way that told Shiro that something was up as he pulled out and sat on the stool next to Shiro.

But before Shiro could ask, Keith was already blurting it out. “You know it’s perfectly fine if you aren’t okay still, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“From, the war, and well, everything really. It’s okay to not be okay.”

Why was Keith bringing this up? Shiro was fine. Or, as fine as he could be. Sure, maybe he had been up all of last night because he was afraid of the nightmares, but it wasn’t anything that he hadn’t done before.

“I’m okay Keith,” Shiro said, the words coming out sharper than he meant them to. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out what this report is talking about.”

He turned to pick up his tablet again, but was stopped by a warm hand on his shoulder.

“You aren’t though.” Keith’s voice was soft as he spoke, and prompted Shiro to look at him.

“You aren’t okay,” Keith stated firmly.

Shiro let out a snort despite himself. “Okay, maybe you’re right. But are any of us really okay? We were in a war, that’s not something that people can just leave and suddenly be okay.”

“You’re right. None of us are okay. But we can get better,” Shiro dropped his gaze, knowing what was coming next. “But only if we let other people help us.”

Part of Shiro had the desire to childishly retort, to ask Keith how he was one to talk, but he refrained. To be honest, ever since Keith had met his mom, he had become a lot more open, especially when he needed help, which was something that Shiro did find incredibly relieving. Afterall, it meant that he no longer had to constintantly worry that Keith could be bleeding out and just refusing to tell anyone he was injured.

“I know Keith,” Shiro found himself saying. “I’ve hear and given this speech many times before. But I really need to figure out what this report is saying.” Shiro really didn’t, it hadn’t been an important meeting, but he just was not in the mood to have this conversation right now.

There was a moment of silence where Shiro prayed that it meant the conversation was over with, but then Keith spoke up again.

“It wasn’t your fault. It never was your fault,” Keith whispered, seemingly to himself before he turned his head to look directly at Shiro. “It wasn’t your fault that I died.”

Shiro felt a plethora of emotions jolt through him at the mention of Keith’s death. One of the most prominent was still the fear that he had felt when he thought that the others wouldn’t make it in time, that Keith really was going to die cradled in Shiro’s lap, the fear that he had had when he had stumbled into the infirmary into an ocean of panic, the fear he had had when he saw Coran using the altean equivalent to a human defibrillator because Keith’s heart had stopped, and--

“What brought this up?” Shiro’s tone was sharper than he meant it to be, and his fear wasn’t as well masked as he had hoped. “Was it Anton’s comment at dinner? I swear I didn’t tell him about your second ‘death,’ I would never do that to him--”

Keith was shaking his head. “No, no, Anton was fine. It was Mira actually. She- she brought some things that should have been talked about a long time ago to my attention.”

“I should have known,” Shiro muttered, remembering all the arguments that Mira and he had had about him getting a therapist while he insisted that he was fine. Then he side-eyed Keith. “What kinds of things did she bring up?” Shiro asked warily.

“A lot of things, you should really talk to her about it, you should hear them from her. But,” Keith hesitated, as if trying to search for the right words.

“Just say it,” Shiro told Keith, “I don’t care if it doesn’t sound pretty, just say it.”

Instead of answering immediately, Keith looked Shiro in the eyes intensely, as if he was searching for something. “Do you blame yourself? For me almost dying?” the words were softly spoken, but Shiro heard them loud and clear. Shiro dropped his gaze.

“Keith…”

“Tell me. Do you blame yourself for me nearly dying?” Keith’s tone was serious, and for some reason his works irked Shiro, who lifted his head as he snapped.

“You didn’t ‘almost die,’ Keith! Your heart stopped! You were dead, I watched you die and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.” Shiro took a deep shuddering breath and his gaze dropped to his hands, one flesh and the other a white metal, but in his eyes they were both red with the blood that belonged inside his little brother. “Of course I blame myself,” he whispered.

Keith was silent, and Shiro almost looked up to get some sort of read on Keith’s reaction when he suddenly felt two familiar arms embracing him.

“It isn’t your fault,” Keith murmured firmly, “And don’t you say that you did nothing. You were the one who called for the help that saved my life, even after I had just barely been trying to kill you. You were the one who was able to help me the most with regaining my memories, all of those long hours with those stupid mind-melding bands you were willing to spend with me even when I was ready to give up, you never gave up on me. You were the one who saved me, Shiro. So don’t you dare blame yourself, you understand?” Keith shuffled slightly so that Shiro was suddenly looking at his face, even though Keith’s arms were still holding tightly to Shiro.

“Takashi, do you understand?” Keith asked again when Shiro didn’t respond right away.

“I- I-” Why was saying two words suddenly so hard? Shiro licked his lips and squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly aware of the slight sting that indicated tears. He took in a deep breath before opening his eyes again, meeting purple irises with his own grey. “I understand.”

Keith offered a smile at this, then he hugging Shiro even tighter, and Shiro was returning the hug, feeling an odd sense of dejavu as he remembered hugging a much younger Keith this same way, Keith’s head tucked into Shiro’s chest and Shiro’s chin resting on a mop of black hair.

“And Keith,” Shiro spoke up after a moment of silence.

Keith made a noise to indicate he heard.

“None of it was your fault either, okay?”

There was a beat of silence. Then Shiro heard a muffled, “Okay,” that made him smile.

Shiro lost track of how long they stayed like that, but eventually Keith peeled away claiming to need to shower and go to bed. Shiro noted that his eyes were slightly red-rimmed, but didn’t comment on it, sure that his own probably looked the same.

Shiro spared another glance at the now darkened tablet with the report he just couldn’t make sense of, debating on whether or not it would be worth it to try again, only to pick it up and put it away on his way back to his and Curtis’s shared room, shoulders feeling oddly lighter as he stood up.

 

“Did everything go well?” Curtis asked, looking up from his phone as Shiro entered the room.

“You were in on it too?”

“Nah,” Cutis said as he fiddled with his phone a bit more. When Shiro sat down next to him he saw that he was playing a game. “I could tell that Mira was planning something the moment she managed to get Anton to clean his room so she could talk to Keith alone.”

“She got Anton to clean his room?”

“I don’t know how either. But there is really no stopping Mira when she is on a mission.”

“That’s true,” Shiro conceded. “Do you still need the light on for anything?”

“Nah, you’re good to turn it off.”

Shiro flipped the switch and then used the light from Curtis’s phone to find his way back to the bed, where he laid down.

“Hey, Curtis?” Shiro spoke after a moment of staring up into the dark.

“Yeah Takashi?”

Shiro hesitated a moment before steeling his resolve. “Do you know where I put that list of therapists Mira gave me a while back?”

Without even turning his head, Shiro could see Curtis’s smile illuminated by his phone’s screen. “I have a picture on my phone. You want to look into some of them tomorrow?”

“I- I think that it would be good for me to.”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea. We can do it when Keith takes the kids out, I heard Anton is very excited about it. We could go to the new ice cream shop, I hear they have really good milkshakes.”

“I’d like that very much. Goodnight Curtis.”

“Goodnight, Takashi. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Soon after that, Shiro found himself drifting off to sleep, and for the first time in a long time, his sleep was unbothered by nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real question is, will I ever actually kill off Keith for good? Who knows, because I sure don't.  
> I really hoped you enjoyed, thank you so much for reading, and a special thanks to everyone who has left Kudos and especially to those who left comments, you guys make my day.  
> Anyways, I hope you all have a lovely day.
> 
>  
> 
> -MasterOfMyDestiny

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a two-chapter piece, I hope to get the next chapter up really soon.


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